God DAMN Divinity II is addictive

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Flying Fortresses: They removed all anti-Dragon zones (except 1 in Stone'S fortress) and with them the occasional puzzles to remove them. They drastically cut down (and I mean drastically) on flying islands and enemies. All the dragon sequences are now a cakewalk, whereas in ED some dragon sequences were really hard. The new nightmare difficulty is still only 1/10 of the original hard difficulty. Very easy. The encounters in the fortresses have been improved though, instead of having groups of 4 enemies every 50 metres, enemies are now within fortress-like structures, a lot of them, and hence pose a threat if you charge in mindlessly. It's true that the original game was a pain in the ass sometimes difficulty-wise, but I think they went oveboard in making it easier.

 

[DraQ]

They're not mandatory, you can just head straight to the teleporter in dragon form and drop onto it. You do have to be pretty quick/precise to get to it before being slaughtered by explosive arrows, but there are no hard barriers like those that forced you to crawl through the entire fortress before.

It counts as decline for me, a quick, dirty fix reeking of bethesda rather than trying to diversify the fortress experience and make it more interesting.
Old fortresses were better in that there was a point to crawling them and a point to all those defences and ground troops. Now, they are pretty much bypassable by allowing you to dragon-drop onto the teleporter.

Then again, I didn't find the fortresses terribly annoying. They were quite a bit monotonous, but they did have unique aesthetics and atmosphere in addition to being z-heavy environments. As a concept they were very cool, it's just that they failed to provide challenge other than "here are 238 identical ballistae, have fun destroying them one-by-one".
More diverse, synergistic fortifications and more diverse aerial defenders would help, same with some sort of XP alternative between dragon and human forms that would remove the need to quick-fix it by disabling ground troops while you're in the air.

For example, you could have ground-based crews that would rush and man the fortifications and machinery if you attacked in dragon form (also, destructible Black Ring airships *fapfapfap*), then get killed when you destroyed the defenses (no ground based XP), or attack you on foot if you attacked in human form, leaving the defences unamanned and non-functional (no XP for destroying them later in dragon form).

And kind of, you only go into dragon form for one longish sequence at the very end.

It's pretty cool, albeit linear.
You get supercharged skills, but the enemy numbers are quite insane and it is an escort mission so you can't really take your time.
You also get a new spell that pretty much works as mini-nuke.

 

[MicoSelva]

I had no time at all to play DKS over the weekend. I am really butthurt about this. Also, beginning to feel withdrawal symptomes.

 

[Marquess Cornwallis]

I finished the DKS yesterday. A very enjoyable game (especially the expansion part). Solid writing, voice acting and tongue-in-cheek humour. The combat (if a little too easy even on 'nightmare') was relatively simple but fun, as was exploration, due in part to large number of side-quests and absence of hand-holding (a quest compass would have seriously ruined it). The dragon form was a little lacklustre, but DraQ has already covered that in detail in his post(s). I have to thank Crispy and everyone else who championed the game; I would have missed out on it if it wasn't for this thread.

 

[ghostdog]

Yep, This thread made me give the game another try. I finally got rid of the stuttering problems and now I'm really starting to like this one.

It's a solid action RPG on all aspects --nothing exceptional-- just overall good fun.

 

[Mastermind]

Are the enemy debuff spells any good? Which ones work on bosses?

 

[DraQ]

Are the enemy debuff spells any good? Which ones work on bosses?

Yes, but debuffs are usually level dependent (excessively shitty design decision if you ask me), so either you pump points in them all game or you don't invest in them at all. Otherwise you're just wasting points.

 

[Mastermind]

I was planning on just picking one and putting points in it all game anyway. do they work on bosses (final ones in particular)?

 

[Satori (original)]

How much is left once you hit Aleroth?

 

[Tigranes]

You're pretty much done, depending on what you've done in the Fjords - ALeroth is tiny, it's basically another small village as part of the Fjords stuff.

But after that you'll get into FOV, where you get the full blown Aleroth with literally dozens of quests.

Loved the last 2 weeks getting through DKS, this thread made me buy it and it's worth it, though I feel the skill range is fairly liimited and there's no real replayability value.

 

[Heresiarch]

Just reached FoV. The beginning "I'm back" mini-sequence made me laugh (again). Walked around a bit and found Aleroth so very detailed. It's just so much fun listening to NPC chat. It gives me the Sigil/Vizima vibe, which is a good thing.

How long is FoV?

Btw, DraQ cool avatar bro

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

How long is FoV?

Depends on how thorough you are, maybe 20h?

 

[Tigranes]

Seriously? It took me probably a bit less than 10, and looking at the walkthrough it looks like I did most of the quests.

It's one big town filled with lots of people and things to do, but it's not twenty hours unless you get lost a lot, listen to all teh voice overs and larp a talkative middle aged soccer mom.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

If you play with a walkthru, skip conversations, don't explore everything, don't read the ingame books etc, yes maybe less than 10 h.
I supposed that's how Skyway finished ME1 in 8h whereas I needed like 6h to even explore the citadel fully. I don't play games for speed records.

 

[Satori (original)]

Is the only way to respec after Ego to menu start FoV? Do you lose all your equipment if you do so?

 

[hoverdog]

No, you still can teleport to your battle tower and pay your trainer.

 

[Satori (original)]

Played a mage on Ego, does this warrior build look OK for FoV?

 

[hoverdog]

Played a mage on Ego, does this warrior build look OK for FoV?

Bad. Intelligence is the most important stat for every build. Drop Dex and Vit a bit.
Still, FoV combat is very easy, apart from more sophisticated boss encounters, but even then it's more of a puzzle than difficult encounter.

 

[Tigranes]

If you play with a walkthru, skip conversations, don't explore everything, don't read the ingame books etc, yes maybe less than 10 h.
I supposed that's how Skyway finished ME1 in 8h whereas I needed like 6h to even explore the citadel fully. I don't play games for speed records.

I checked the walkthrough to see what I missed after I finished, actually.

 

[DraQ]

I was planning on just picking one and putting points in it all game anyway. do they work on bosses (final ones in particular)?

Viability of most status inflicting skills against bosses is very poor in general, I honestly can't recall if curse is an exception or not. Still it's pretty spammable and has large AoE. It certainly does soften swarms of enemies rather nicely.

Bosses in general seem immune to most status effects - stun, fear, etc. Fatality is surprisingly good against them, especially if they heal and you have trouble bringing their HP down, for any reason.

Btw, DraQ cool avatar bro

Thanks.

 

[bhlaab]

Played a mage on Ego, does this warrior build look OK for FoV?

Pretty fuckin terrible. Your lack of magic resistance and Indominatable Will will be the death of you, and your ranged resistance isn't great either.

I take it this is without anything equipped?

 

[Crispy]

Stats in green always represent enhanced via items, don't they?

 

[Satori (original)]

Not at char creation. Tried to do it on a more modified version of that and still got my arse kicked. My mage was way better.

 

[abnaxus]

Is the white cat seen at the very end of FoV Arhu from Divine Divinity?

 

[Varn]

Dunno, but I just got told by some wierd Romanian fortune-teller in Broken Valley that I need to follow some creature in white to reach my goal. Le fuck... may be related to what you're talking about with the white cat.